Designing Physical Artifacts for Tangible Narratives: Lessons Learned from Letters to José

Digital tangible interfaces have been used to present or embed interactive stories for decades. While many researchers explored different ways of creating engaging interactive experiences, they focused more on the novelty of the interface and the new experience it brought for users, rather than the exploration of tangible interfaces as a language, or a medium, for storytelling. Through a visual journey of our creative explorations, this pictorial reflects upon the design and making of Letters to José, a tangible narrative built during a three-year practice-led research project. Located in the intersection of tangible interaction design and interactive storytelling, our work characterizes the relationships between the artifact, other artifacts, the body, and the space with respect to supporting the narrative experience. The outcome is an annotated visual typology of artifacts for storytelling in the context of tangible narrative, as a design category and toolbox for researchers and creators of tangible stories.